Click here to view original article - written by Lori Riley of the Hartford Courant
HARTFORD, CT - When somebody told Erica Jesseman she had 10 kilometers to go to the finish line of the ING Hartford Marathon, her first thought was, "Well, six months ago, that was my race."
Now she's a marathoner. Jesseman, who hadn't raced farther than a 20K in New Haven on Labor Day before Saturday, not only won the Hartford Marathon women's race in her first time out but also qualified for the Olympic trials with a time of 2:45:00.
"It was hard," said Jesseman, 22, who graduated from the University of New Hampshire last year and lives in Scarborough, Maine. "The first 13 [miles] or so, I felt like I wasn't even racing. Then I hit Mile 20 and it was really painful."
Runner-up Ashley Gorr of Wellfleet, Mass., also qualified for the Olympic trials, which will take place in Houston in January, finishing in 2:45:31. The B standard time, which qualifies runners for the race but doesn't pay for expenses, is 2:46.
"It got tough at the end, especially with the wind," said Gorr, 24, running her fourth marathon. "I'm happy with that [time]. It was a PR by about five minutes."
Solomon Too of Kenya won the men's race in 2:21:03, taking the lead in the 24th mile from runner-up Folisho Tuko of Ethiopia (2:21:33). Last year's winner, ultramarathoner Michael Wardian of Arlington, Va., was third (2:22:18).
Approximately 10,000 runners competed in the marathon, half-marathon, 5K, marathon relay and kids race. There were 2,205 finishers in the marathon, 5,153 in the half and 1,440 in the 5K.
New Zealand Olympian Kim Smith lowered her course record in the half-marathon to 1:11:18 as she ran a tempo run to prepare for the Nov. 6 New York City Marathon. Mathew Kiplagat of Kenya was the men's half-marathon winner (1:06:23).
Stephen Pretak of New London won the 5K (15:35) and Cayla Hatton, 17, of Farmington, was the women's winner (17:08).
Last spring, the longest race Jesseman had run was a 10K. She was a 5,000- and 10,000-meter runner at New Hampshire. But she started training with Sheri Piers and Kristin Barry, two of Maine's top runners. Both had qualified for the trials and Jesseman decided she wanted to try to run in Houston with her friends.
So Saturday, for the first 13 miles, she ran with Gorr and Lesley Hocking of Dover, N.H., who finished third.
"I decided I was going to pick it up [then] because I knew I didn't have a lot of experience in marathons and I knew I was going to die the last 10K," Jesseman said. "I needed leeway room if I wanted to make the trials."
She made it, with a minute to spare.
Mary-Lynn Currier, 47, of Canton, was the first state finisher in fifth (2:56:30) and the first female master. Scott Mindel of New London (eighth, 2:30:19) was the first state finisher in the men's race
Too, the men's winner, was having problems with one of his shoes and decided to stop and pull out his shoe insert in the second mile. He spent the rest of the race running slightly off-balance but eventually catching up to Tuko, his Westchester Track Club teammate, who had just arrived in the U.S. Wednesday after a 22-hour journey from Ethiopia. Too, 27, finally passed Tuko with 2 miles to go.
Wardian was gaining on both of them but ran out of room. If the race was an ultramarathon, he would have been all set.
"I was hoping they miscalculated [how much energy they had] but they didn't," said Wardian, 37. "They went out pretty hard to shake us off. I didn't think they would be able to hold that. They almost didn't, but they did. The guy in second, he was cooked."
After the race, Wardian was heading to Maine for today's Mount Desert Island Marathon in Bar Harbor, where he hoped to break the course record (2:31:54). He has run back-to-back marathons twice before.
"It depends on how I recover," said Wardian, who looked like he was ready to run another marathon right after the race. "With the race [today], I'm pretty happy. [My time in Hartford] was faster than last year. I wanted to be able to bounce back and run again."
